“Who was that foreigner, Koi-san?” asked Etsuko afterwards.
“A pupil of Koi-san’s,” said Sachiko. “I often see her on the train.”
“A very pretty girl, I have always thought.”
“Does that foreigner like Chinese cooking?” asked Etsuko.
“She grew up in Shanghai, and knows everything about Chinese cooking. She says the dirtiest restaurants—restaurants most foreigners refuse to go to—are the best, and this is the best in all Kobe.”
“Is she Russian?” asked Yukiko. “Somehow she looks less Russian than—I hardly know what.”
“She went to an English school in Shanghai, and was a nurse in an English hospital, and was once married to an Englishman. You would hardly think she was old enough, but she even has a child.”
“Really? And how old is she, then?”
“I wonder. About my age? Or a little younger?”
According to Taeko, the White Russian Kyrilenko family had a small two-storey house, four rooms in all, not far from her studio. There Katharina lived with her old mother and a brother. Taeko had for some time had a nodding acquaintance with Katharina, and then one day, a month or two before^ the latter had appeared at the studio and announced that she wanted to learn to make dolls, especially Japanese dolls. Taeko immediately found herself being called “the professor.” In some confusion she suggested that “Taeko” might be more appropriate, and the two quickly became close friends. Taeko occasionally stopped by the Kyrilenko house on her way to and from the studio.
“She said not long ago she often saw you on the train. She said she thought you very attractive, and wanted to meet you.”
“What do they live on?”
“The brother has a business, importing wool, I believe. But to judge from the house they are far from well off. Katharina was given a settlement when she divorced her husband, and says she has enough to live on. She manages to keep herself fairly trim, you can see.”
They talked of the Kyrilenko family over the metal bowls of Chinese food, the prawns and the pigeon-egg soup that Etsuko liked, and the glazed duck skin that Sachiko liked, and so on. Katharina’s child, a little girl three or four years old to judge from her picture, had been taken to England by her father. Taeko had no idea whether dolls were only a hobby for Katharina, or whether she meant one day to turn her new skill to profit. For a foreigner she was clever with her hands and quick to learn, and in very little time she had mastered all the problems of pattern and color combination.
The family had been broken up at the time of the Revolution. Katharina grew up in Shanghai, where she was taken by her grandmother. The brother went to Japan with his mother, and was said to have studied in a Japanese middle school and to have some knowledge of Japanese writing. In contrast to Katharina, an Anglophile, the brother and mother were extraordinarily pro-Japanese. In one of the two downstairs rooms of their house hung pictures of the Emperor and Empress, and in the other pictures of the last Czar and his consort. The brother was of course very good in Japanese, and Katharina had learned a surprising amount in the short time she had been in the country. The most entertaining Japanese was that of the old mother. Taeko had been rather puzzled at first.
“The Japanese the old one talks! She speaks at a fearful rate and misses the important words. She looked a little surprised the other day when I told her my home was in Osaka, and it only came to me later that she was telling me to make myself at home.”
Taeko was an excellent mimic. She liked to entertain them by burlesquing the little mannerisms she was so quick to notice. Her imitations of “the old one” were almost too good. There before them would be the old Russian woman they had never met.
“She seems to have been very remarkable. She was a doctor of law in Russia. ‘I no good Japanese,’ she says. ‘French, German, I speak.’“
“She must once have had money. How old is she?”
“Past sixty, I would say. But you would never guess it. She is as lively as a young girl.”
Three or four days later Taeko came home with another story about “the old one.” Taeko had been shopping in Kobe, and she was having a cup of tea at Juccheim’s when the old woman came in with Katharina. They were going skating, they said. If she was free, would she like to join them? Though she had never skated, Taeko had confidence in her athletic abilities. She decided to have a try when they assured her that they could teach her in no time. After an hour or so she was skating well, and the old woman was lavish in her praise.
“You, very good. I think this no first time.”
But the astonishing one was “the old one” herself. The moment they were on the rink she sailed off with complete aplomb, straight and confident, treating them now and then to a truly breathtaking display of virtuosity. All the other skaters stopped to watch.
“1 had dinner at Katharina’s,”‘ said Taeko, corning home late one evening.
The Russians, she had found, were a race of remarkably heavy eaters. First came cold appetizers, and then all sorts of bread, and hot dish after hot dish, meats and vegetables heaped to the brim, Taeko had had enough with the appetizers alone. No more thank you; I really could not possibly—but the Kyrilenkos ate on. What was the matter with her? Wouldn’t she have more of this, or perhaps this? And as they ate they gulped down beer and Japanese saké and vodka. Taeko was not surprised at the brother, but Katharina kept him company, and “the old one” ate and drank with both of them. It was nine o’clock, and Taeko got up to leave. No, she couldn’t go yet—they brought out cards and played for an hour or so. At past ten they started on another dinner. Taeko could barely bring herself to look at the food, but the others ate and drank—it might be more accurate to say that they tossed liquor down—as happily as before. A most astonishing set of stomachs, thought Taeko. The Russians explained that Japanese sake, and even a strong liquor like vodka, had to be drunk fast if it was to be enjoyed. The food was not especially remarkable, Taeko thought, although she was interested in the soup, a sort of ravioli soup to judge from her description.
“She says I am to bring my sisters and brother-in-law next time. Would you like to go for a look?”
Katharina was busy on a Japanese doll with long, flowing sleeves, an old-style coiffure, and, in one hand, a New Year battledore. Since Taeko was the model, Katharina sometimes came to the Ashiya house to work, and in the course of time she became acquainted with the rest of the family. Teinosuke had remarked, it was true, that she should have a try at Hollywood, but there was in fact not a suggestion of Yankee coarseness about her. Indeed something gentle and ladylike in her manner made it easy for her to be friendly with Japanese women.
On February 11, the anniversary of the founding of the Empire, Katharina appeared at the door with her brother, who had on plus fours. They were hiking to Kōza Falls, she said, and had only stopped by to say hello. Walking through the garden to the terrace, they had a cocktail or two and talked to Teinosuke for perhaps a half hour.
“Now we must meet the old one,” said Teinosuke.
Sachiko agreed. “But after listening to Koi-san, I feel as if I already knew her.”
17
TAEKO had aroused their curiosity, and they found it hard to go on refusing. Finally in the spring—actually on a chilly March evening—they went to the Kyrilenko house. The whole family had been invited, but, knowing they would be late getting home, they left Etsuko behind, and Yukiko to keep her company. Sachiko and Teinosuke set out with Taeko. Perhaps a quarter of a mile from the station the bourgeois mansions gave way to rice paddies, and beyond the paddies was a pine-covered hill. The Kyrilenko house stood in a cluster of little houses, the smallest of all, and yet very clean and pretty, like something out of a fairy tale. Katharina led them to the farther of the downstairs rooms. There was a cast-iron stove in the center, and when the four of them were seated—on the sofa, in the one easy chair, and on a hard wooden chair—they were in great danger of brushing the stove or the chimney, or knocking something off
the table. The bedrooms were apparently upstairs. They gathered that, besides these two rooms downstairs, there was only a kitchen somewhere in back. The next room, through an open door, seemed no larger than this one. Teinosuke wondered how six of them could possibly sit down for dinner. What was even stranger, however, was the fact that only Katharina was with them. The brother and “the old one” of the stories were nowhere to be seen. Though the Makiokas knew that foreigners generally dined later than Japanese, they had neglected to ask the exact time. Perhaps they had come early. But even when it was dark outside, the house was quite still, and nothing was being done about dinner.
“Here. My first doll.” Katharina took up a dancing doll from the bottom shelf of a triangular cupboard.
“You really made this?”
“Yes. But it had many bad things. Taeko repaired them.”
“Look at the obi,” said Taeko. The dark cloth of the obi, which was tied so that the ends trailed down, was decorated with Japanese chess pieces. No doubt Katharina had drawn on her brother’s knowledge of things Japanese. “This is not something I taught her. Katharina designed it by herself, and even painted the pieces.”
“Look at this.” Katharina took out an album of photographs from her Shanghai years. “Here. My husband. Here, my daughter.”
“How pretty. She looks exactly like her mother.”
“You think so?”
“I do indeed. Do you never feel lonesome for her?”
“She is in England. I cannot see her. That is all.”
“Do you know where in England she is? Could you see her if you were to go there?”
“I do not know. But I want to see her. Maybe I will go to see her.” There was nothing sentimental in Katharina’s tone. She seemed quite philosophical.
Sachiko and Teihosuke had for some time been feeling hungry. They glanced uncertainly at their watches and at each other.
“And your brother? Is he out this evening?” Teinosuke took advantage of a lull in the conversation.
“My brother, he is always late, every night.”
“And your mother?”
“My mother went shopping in Kobe.”
“I see.”
It was possible, of course, that the old woman had gone off to buy provisions for dinner, but when the clock on the wall struck seven they began to feel as though the signals had gone wrong. Taeko, responsible for having brought them, was soon looking quite openly at the dining room. Whether Katharina noticed or not, she said nothing. Now and then she got up to put more coal in the stove, which was so small that it needed refueling almost immediately. They really had to think of something to talk about, since silence only made them hungrier, but when they ran out of subjects, they could only listen to the fire. A mongrel dog, largely pointer they would have said, pushed open the door and, picking a warm spot among the feet, lay down happily with its jowls on its forepaws.
“Boris,” said Katharina. The dog rolled its eyes at her.
“Boris,” said Teinosuke, for want of anyone else to talk to. He stroked the dog’s arched back, and presently another half hour went by.
“Katharina,” he said suddenly. “Have we made a mistake?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Koi-san, have we come on the wrong day?” He spoke in the Osaka dialect, which Katharina could not understand. “If so, she must be terribly embarrassed. Maybe we should say good-bye.”
“But how could I have been wrong? Katharina.”
“Yes?”
“You ask her, Sachiko. I have no idea how to.”
“Maybe your French would be useful at a time like this,” said Teinosuke.
“Does Katharina speak French, Koi-san?”
“I think not. She knows English, though.”
“Katharina, I … I am …” Teinosuke began in faltering English. “I am afraid … you were not expecting us tonight.”
“Why not?” Katharina looked at him in astonishment. “We invited you for tonight, and we were waiting for you.” Her English was fluent, though she spoke with a certain tenseness.
As the clock struck eight, Katharina left the room. They heard a clattering in the kitchen, and a moment later she had the table in the next room lined with dishes and platters, and was inviting them to take their places. Their first reaction when they saw the appetizers (when might she have prepared them?)— smoked salmon and salted anchovies and sardines in oil, and ham and cheese and crackers, and meat pie and all sorts of bread—was one of relief. All three were hungry, and they ate as rapidly as good form allowed. Presently, however, as Katharina urged them to take more, they were passing bits of food under the table to Boris. Katharina meanwhile busied herself making tea and refilling cups.
The front door slammed, and Boris bounded into the hall,
“The old one seems to be back,” whispered Taeko.
“The old one” disappeared from the hall into the kitchen with five or six little bundles under her arm. Katharina’s brother came into the room, followed by a gentleman perhaps in his fifties.
“We began our feast without you,” said Teinosuke.
“Please, please.” Kyrilenko rubbed his hands together. He was rather small and delicate for a foreigner, and the cheeks of his long, thin face, which reminded one of a Kabuki actor, were red from the chill of the early-spring wind. He spoke a few words to Katharina in Russian. Teinosuke and the rest caught only “Mamochka, Mamochka,” which they took to be an affectionate diminutive for “Mother.”
“I met my mother in Kobe and we came home together. And this is my friend Vronsky.” He patted the other gentleman on the shoulder. “Taeko already knows him, I believe.”
“We have met. My brother-in-law, my sister.”
“Vronsky,” mused Teinosuke. “There is someone by that name in Anna Karenina.”
“You are very well informed. You read Tolstoy, do you?”
“All Japanese read Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky,” said Kyrilenko.
“How do you happen to know Mr. Vronsky?” asked Sachiko.
“He lives in a rooming house not far from my studio. He is terribly fond of children.” Taeko spoke in the Osaka dialect. “Everyone in the neighborhood knows about ‘the Russian who likes children.’ They call him ‘the Russian who likes children’ more often than they call him Mr. Vronsky.”
“Is he married?”
“No … as a matter of fact, there seems to have been an unhappy affair.”
There was something gentle, a little weak, about Vronsky. They could see that he might be partial to children. The corners of his rather sad eyes were wrinkled in a smile as he listened to this discussion of himself. He was larger than Kyrilenko, but he seemed somehow more like a Japanese, with his close-knit frame, his swarthy skin as of one who has long been exposed to the sun, his thick hair now flecked with gray, his black eyes. They wondered if he might not once have been a sailor.
“You didn’t bring Etsuko?” asked Kyrilenko.
“She has her homework to do.”
“What a shame. I told Vronsky here I would show him a very pretty little girl this evening.”
“I wish we had known.”
“The old one” came in to greet them.
“How nice you come. Taeko’s other sister, little girl, why they not come?”
The accent was exactly as Taeko had reproduced it. Taeko was looking away with studied composure, and that only made it harder for the others to keep from laughing. “The old one,” they called her; but she had none of the portliness foreign women fall into as they grow old. The figure, trim and straight, especially as seen from the rear, the slender, well-shaped legs above high-heeled shoes, the firm step as the hells clicked across the floor, swift and deer-like, untamed one might have said—seeing these, they had no trouble imagining the old woman as she swept blithely off across that skating rink. When she smiled, they noted that several teeth were missing. The flesh sagged at the jaws and throat, and the face was covered with small wrinkles, like a piece of
crepe silk; but the skin itself was a pure, clear white, and from a distance, with the wrinkles obscured one might well take her for twenty years younger.
“The old one” cleared the table, and covered it afresh with the food she had brought: oysters, caviar, sour pickles, pork and chicken and liver sausages, and again all sorts of bread. The drinking began: vodka and beer were brought out, and heated sake”, in drinking glasses rather than the tiny cups more commonly used. Of the Russians, “the old one” and Katharina seemed fond of sake. There was, as Teinosuke had feared, not room for all of them to sit down. Katharina leaned against the mantle, and “the old one” helped herself from behind the rest when she was not busy bringing out new dishes. Since there were not enough knives and forks, Katharina sometimes picked something up in her hand. She turned scarlet when one of the guests caught her. They had to pretend not to notice.
“Stay away from the oysters,” Sachiko whispered to Teinosuke. The oysters showed every sign of being not deep-sea oysters, but quite ordinary oysters picked up at a near-by fish market. The Russians, who ate them with great gusto, were on that point, at least, not as discriminating as their Japanese guests.
Careful not to attract attention, the Japanese were passing on to Boris what was left of the too-generous helpings.
Teinosuke had been mixing his drinks, and his voice was growing louder. “And what is that?” He pointed to a framed picture beside that of the Czar.
“That is the palace at Tsarskoe Selo, near Petrograd,” said Kyrilenko. They refused to call the city “Leningrad.”
“That is the famous Tsarskoe Selo palace, is it.”
“Our house, very near palace at Tsarskoe Selo. Czar, horse, ride out of palace. You see? I watch him every day. I think I hear voice, talking.”
“Mamochka,” said Kyrilenko. After an explanation in Russian, he interpreted for her. “What she wants to say is that she could not actually hear his voice, but the carriage passed so near that she thought she could. Our house was almost next door to the palace. Of course I can barely remember it myself.”
The Makioka Sisters Page 9